Is the US decision against flibanserin really discrimination?

The strongly contested views on "female sexual dysfunction" were fuelled last October when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied Sprout Pharmaceutical’s bid to market flibanserin, a drug aimed at treating low sexual desire in women.

Eight women’s groups, including the National Organization of Women, protested the decision, saying that it was discriminatory to women. But Paul D. Thacker, the author of an article in Slate.com, has looked farther into this issue, and has asked where the idea that sexism is to blame for the FDA’s rejection of flibanserin came from. “It appears from Sprout itself,” he writes, adding, “Many of the doctors accusing the FDA of sexism have received some sort of monetary compensation from Sprout.”